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Chefs in their kitchens are experts in chemistry, biochemistry, and thermodynamics. They understand the delicate balance of acids and bases, they grok how proteins tangle and gel when heat is applied, and the delicious caramel of the Malliard reaction is second-nature. The Chef is a scientist, and the Chef's kitchen is his laboratory, and it's time your equipment reflected your passion for food.

Tea is enjoying a resurgence in popularity, and why not? The health benefits have been well known for thousands of years, since the days of the earliest Chinese Emperors. As science has caught up with the herbalists, and the complex chemistry involved in tea brewing starts with proper temperatures. For example, some green teas are best brewed between 140 and 150 degrees Fahrenheit, or around 60 C. If you use boiling water, you'll end up extracting more of the unpleasant bitter and tannic flavor compounds. Black teas require very hot water to get the pungent smoky flavors to bloom. This specially designed tea kettle lets you dial the best temperature for your tea with a precision you just can't get in a typical boiler.

Now that you've got your brewing temperature sorted out, let's work on your tea brewing technique. First, throw out those tea bags. Those are mostly twigs and powder. Your best bet is loose-leaf tea scooped one teaspoon of green tea or half that for black tea per 8 ounces of water. Steep at the proper temperature for 3 to 5 minutes. Careful - you've now entered the Danger Zone of tea. Too often, novice tea drinkers will try and press the spent leaves to extract all the liquid. Mistake! The clever IngenuiTEA teapot uses a novel gravity-locking valve that opens when you rest the pot on top of your teacup, draining through the bottom, and leaving the spent leaves, and all that nasty bitterness, behind!

It is said that the first Valyrian steel sword was hardened having been plunged into the heart of the the smith's beloved. While not Valyrian steel, these kitchen knives are stored conveniently in an anthropomorphised "body" which is certain to make heads turn in your kitchen. You get a full set here - chef's knife, carver, paring, boning, bread knife... you're all set as far as slicing and dicing is concerned. Made from stainless steel, which is plenty durable and holds an edge. Maybe not as well as Valyrian steel, but at least you don't have to pay the iron price to get your hands on this set.

Pepper is a staple spice in every chef's arsenal of flavors. No protein or veggie should ever meet the heat without a generous dusting of freshly cracked black pepper. The problem is you lack enough hands. That's right - you've got one hand on your pan's handle or maybe a set of tongs, but your pepper grinder is a two-hand operation, and that just totally ruins your flow. Our culinary sciences team found a really cool one-handed pepper grinder you operate with your thumb. With a spring-mounted ceramic grinder, a couple of quick squeezes pops out just enough fresh pepper to add that perfect amount of zest to your dish.

The egg is a devilishly useful self-contained bit of protein magic. The egg's yolks yolks are mostly fat which add a luxuriousness to creams and custards, while the egg-white has the perfect structure of protein that, when heated, coalesces into a tightly wound mesh that makes great stiff peaks for merengues. Separating the yolk from the white can be delicate. If the egg has been in the fridge for a few weeks, the membrane that separates the yolk from the white becomes fragile and can break easily. All it takes is a drop of yolk in your stiff peaks of egg-white and what was fluffy and tall collapses into watery and flat. Pluck gently suctions the yolk from the white faster than you can say 'yoink!'

Timing is critical to your culinary creations. Sometimes a minute is all it takes to go from medium to well done, and sneaking a peek into your oven to "see if it's done" robs you of many joules of heat energy, screwing up your meal even further. Make sure your food stays where it needs to, and no longer, by utilizing a simple timer. This one has a magnetic backing and snaps right onto your fridge or oven door, and looks like one of those classic combination safe knobs. Add style to your kitchen while you apply some temporal science!

Let's take a step back for a minute. There was a time when meals were simpler - cooked directly over fires, or, at best, in a cast iron pot buried in embers. Fine dining it wasn't, but we were still evolved beings, and eating with our hands led to dirty blistered fingers and sticky handshakes. We found a set of eating utensils right out of the dark ages. Hand forged, and with a patina that makes them look ancient, they'll bring a certain Renaissance Festival feel to your every meal.

When aliens come to Earth and demand three examples of human cuisine to determine if we're elevated into the Galactic Pantheon of Beings, or vaporized to make way for a hyperspace bypass, we presented them three things. Chocolate, coffee, and French wine. The first two were enthusiastically received, but the aliens choked on the wine! Too tannic, they complained, and returned to orbit to set their phasers to "frag." If only we had used the Vinturi! See, some fine red wines need to "breathe" to reach their peak. Tannins and other compounds break down in the presence of oxygen, and decanting wine for a few hours before drinking helps the flavor develop. The Vinturi turbocharges the operation, one glass at a time, by forcing air through the wine as it pours. You'll be amazed!

Those dark masters of assassination, the ninja, train all day to kill. When they're done, they enjoy a good cookout with beers, and buds, and thick porterhouse steaks. It is known. It is known. Shrouded in mystery, it was only recently that the iconic design of their blades carries over into their cooking implements. We've secured a collection of spatulas, and forks with the same kind of braided handles the ninja use in their killing-blades. Each set includes a black utility apron, so that you can melt back into the shadows.

Daryl raised his crossbow and peered into the wreck of a convenience store. It was dark, and the shifting light reflecting off of the broken windows made shadows move. Still, he had to get what he came for, he just HAD to. Spicy and sweet, gingerbread was always his favorite, so he reached for the bag of gingerbread men, bypassing entirely the full shelf of Twinkies - who eats those things, anyway? Outside the world of comic-to-tv fiction, we thought gingerbread men deserved a certain zombie-mashup. You'll be the most popular baker in the coming apocalypse!

The balisong is as much a dance accessory as it is a deadly weapon. Spinning the so-called butterfly-knife is an art, and can be beautiful and ridiculous at the same time. You only have to watch the product video for our butterfly knife-styled bottle opener! Flip it back and forth, spin it around your hand, and between your fingers, and pop the cap off of a nice cold-one. Plus, if you want to practice your sweet balisong moves, you're not as likely to slice your bits off with a bottle opener.

There is a branch of scotch drinkers that insist it be drunk "neat or nothing." That's fine, if it's your style, but even the hardest of Scots are known to add a wee dram of water or a cube or two of ice to help blunt the burn of a younger whiskey. That's fine, too, but once you've added the right amount of water and ice, your whiskey has become a ticking time-bomb of flavor. The longer the ice sits, the more it melts, and the more water gets added to your liquor. That's what we call sub-optimal. Whiskey stones, when added frozen to your scotch, chills your drink without watering it down, and just looks damn cool to boot. Take your drinks on the rocks!